A cold, gray morning. Up in the woods, a chickadee’s two-note song prompts a cardinal to join in. The sun’s hiding place begins to glow.
January 2015
1/16/2015
A raven croaks somewhere above the ridge. Snow fine as flour. A Brownian cloud of small birds scuds over the treetops: pine siskins.
1/15/2015
Cold and clear. My hat pulled down to block the sun, tree shadows on the snow help me gauge not only the time but the sky’s depth of blue.
1/14/2015
A sharp-shinned hawk careens into a ditch beside a barberry bush where seven small birds have fled. It sits in the snow, eying them up.
1/13/2015
The snowpack glitters in the sun. The soft chirps of foraging sparrows. A single jet trailing a short contrail in an otherwise empty sky.
1/12/2015
Two amorous squirrels chase each other in odd fits and starts, bounding over the snow now pitted and softened by a night of rain.
1/11/2015
Before dawn, a dull light that seems to come more from the snow than the sky. Way off in the forest, something takes a few steps and stops.
1/10/2015
Another zero-degree morning. The wind hisses in the tops of the pines. A blue jay squeaks like a rusty hinge. The sun comes up.
1/9/2015
Snow swirls past the porch like an old film reel dense with the blemishes of time. Juncos chitter. A downy woodpecker’s light, steady taps.
1/8/2015
The thermometer hovers just above zero F. Drifted snow covers the porch. A lone squirrel leaps through the shadows of the trees.
1/7/2015
Snowflakes blowing past must’ve come from a cloud that’s already scudded over the horizon. Faint chirps from the depths of the cedar tree.
1/6/2015
At last, the ground is white again. The cardinal sheltering in the lilac bush flings the snow from her feathers with a flick of her wings.
1/5/2015
Wind and sun and bitter cold. A faint trace of white on the ground, as if left over from last night’s full moon.
1/4/2015
The woods are filled with fog and a roar of traffic from over the ridge. The north roof of the springhouse still wears a scruff of ice.